Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Are you a Friend of Truth?

Quakers are into queries. Queries are questions that one asks oneself and ponders. The idea is to get at truth. Entire Quaker meetings will also ask and ponder queries together. I found an interesting set of queries, published by the Ohio Yearly Meeting, that are geared towards those who don't consider themselves Quaker, but may be closer than they think to being one:

Having a baby is painful. For me, as a man, this is a belief. For my wife, who has had babies, it is truth.

There are many things about God and Christ which one may believe because they have been taught by people whom one respects. There are things about God and Christ which one knows because they have been personally experienced.

We know that for one person to memorize, to recite, even to believe what other people have taught does not make that person a Friend of Truth. Rather, it is when that person has been convinced, by direct experience.

+ Have you witnessed, yourself, convincing evidence of God’s existence?

+ Have you ever felt God’s love?

+ Do you long to be closer to God - to experience His love continuously?

+ Have you ever heard the Word of God whisper deep inside you, to tell you He loves you and to teach you how to live and how to love Him?

+ Has the Light of God ever shone into your heart, to make plain all the things there that are bad and to strengthen all the things there that are good?

+ If you read the first chapter of the Book of John, do you recognize that the Word and the Light described there are the same Word and Light that speak and shine in your heart?

+ Do you know that what keeps you from being closer to God is your desire for things, or thoughts, or behaviors that are not Godly?

+ Have you ever experienced being washed, or “baptized” inwardly, in your heart - being freed, if only for a moment, from your desire for the things that keep you from God?

+ When your spirit hungers and thirsts, is it given food and water directly by Christ, the bread of life and the spring of living waters?

If your answer to any of these questions is, “yes”, then you know some of the Truth that we do.